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Loki's Hans

by V.L. Gonzalez

By V L GoPublished 3 years ago 13 min read
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The sun is rising again, and here he stands on the same quiet shores for a second day. Stuck staring out into the abyss that slowly begins to paint its details back into the pellucid light. As the raw sky begins to separate itself from the seasoned ocean, he has never felt more at home in this strange land. The luminous God spreads its arms across the tantalizing waters, spotlighting his stance as it toasts his feet in the sand. This is as peaceful as you'll ever see this man, for the story of Hans Ludvik Enevoldsen begins, moves, and ends in tinged trembles of chaos.

"Sacrifice", Hans whispers to himself. Indulging in his own dark desires, he contemplates pros and cons of an alluring scheme. Upon one of his many visits to the Old Metropolitan Opera House during his time here in New York, he met a quiet peculiar man named Abraham Bautz. Setting off a course of events in grand places and wondrous wardrobes, many nights were spent intoxicating themselves with the finest of wines and women. Surrounded by epic dramas of classical music, stunning emblems, and family crest, this strange character would fill Hans ears with rich talk of old Norse literature.

Slowly revealing personal beliefs, unconventional cravings, and obscured conquests, Abraham leaned back and asked. "Have you ever sacrificed a plum juicy woman up for the gods themselves?" Then leisurely looked over to Hans and continued. "Have you ever prepped the pure fruit to be ripe enough for their taking?" Many of the stories were filled with reenactments of old ghastly tales and gross explorations of the seven deadly sins. Looking to catch his eye with each mention of the name ‘Loki’, as if knowing that was the God Hans has always been most keen on. Glaring deep into his eyes, Abraham powerfully proclaimed. "I, my dearest Hans, am the loyal hand of the gods." Then paused, to arouse curiosity, before proceeding to ask. "Will you join me?" He had Hans at the first signs of mythology, and the first bottle of fine wine. Feeding into those wants, he added in one last question. "Will you join them?" Abraham deliberately slipped in some information about an upcoming endeavor, and how he hates never being able to have someone share in his revelations. Planting one last seed before he parts, he turned to Hans and said. "You, my son, may just get your chance!"

These waters, the sun, and the moon, his only advisors, for through them he channels the infinite intellect of innate ancestors and deities. Here, Hans is reminded and comforted by amusing stories and sweet memories from past years and wasted days. Though he seems still like the expansive sea before him, off in the imposing distance a mortal war is amidst. "Join the gods?" Hans wonders, back-and-forth in his thoughts. Having great fantasies of the idea, then flushing them over with his bitter realities. His mind and body, along with the boundless body that tickles his sunken toes have been here before, yet both completely changed. These ideas of joining the divinities have got him into messes before, but the copious amounts of blood draping off his clothing and body, paint for him the undeniable picture. This insidious act is one to make the demons and angels hunt together, and with horrific glory drag one down to the pits of the highest flames. "Why do you forsake me?" Hans cracks out a question, continuing with a strengthened weep. "For I should be forever maimed?" Then bursting into a sickening cry of anger. "Maim me! Strike me down in my victims name!"

Who would have known this could escalate so far from the mischievous adolescent days? Holding in a deep breath, Hans mutters. "Rape." His eyes go blank as he takes in a gasp of air. "Murder." Exhaling into a frigid despair, he claims. "He did this." Boiling in his densely produced circumstances, he grinds out a deeply rooted roar. "Abraham!" Hans had to blame someone, and Abraham was beginning to look to him as Hades himself. So much time went by listening to Abraham's voice it now resided within his own head. He would often find himself consumed by fits of rage, wailing. "Devil! Release me!" He tried so hard to bring back the sweet recollections of his youth. Recalling when stealing and making bottle bombs back at Charley Park in Toronto, was as far as he would go. Even the days here in the city at Grand Central Station, when he made his first timed bomb, using only jute, a fire piston, and some clips. Back then the worst characters around him, were people like the gunman in the case of the Bungling Burglar. "Those were the days!" He sighed in relief then froze. "We took that girl." Lost in his fury and misery, he begins to question the power of the immortals. "We took her innocence, and then her life." Almost as if to challenge them, Hans begins to redirect his wrath.

In every place he's explored resides a discrete spot on a sequestered shore where he goes to let his thoughts spin. There they take breath, and finally air time to do more than just subsist. Having dialect with the illustrious spirits he loves to call family and friends. At times behind lost eyes goes dark the soul within, for in his shaded sanity he believes in dreams of joining all of them. These seductive illusions sprouted roots and sprung up wild tentacles in his naive youth. In the presence of loved ones gathered around a fire, singing and speaking words of old Scandinavian folklore and myths. Honeyed candlelight, homey sounds of the fiddle and lur, and open laughter add to the ambience of wondrous horror and glory. Hans mentally, spiritually, and physically devoured every bit and piece, and claimed it as his own. Falling in a deep love that turned to entropic obsessions with enticing flames, plunging sung and spoken words, and meetings with the gods of his kin.

These days he finds himself plagued by a man who would probably have his own wife kidnapped on their wedding day as a token of love. Abraham knew exactly what he was doing at the time. He persuaded Hans into the act, the same way he did the woman. Waiting for the seduction to be complete, to have them both perfectly placed in unknowingly vulnerable positions. Hans, knowing now he could have stopped it, still remembers the enjoyment. Fighting between the moral human within and the devil seduced demon, his deliberations begin to fester. He still hasn't slept since it happened, nor has he left this shore. “What about you, Loki?” he yells out, as he recalls the moment. Flashes of the immense amounts of blood and Abraham thrust with in the belly of the young woman play on repeat. “What do you think about all that has happened?” he questions Loki once more, then submits to the ground. Tormented by the images and scenes burnt over his eyes, Hans can't find release from his deeds. He murdered her, by stabbing her unborn child within and leaving her to die. Hans a carefully selected bystander, became an incognizant accomplice in that very moment, and the victim, his unknown gift of creation.

Abraham’s voice fills my head once again. “That was your daughter, Hans, and I’ve been using and prepping her body in whatever ways I’ve pleased for months.” Still in shock, my thoughts continue to bounce in and out of realms of reality and sanity. Tottering between nonsense like hating the Gregorian calendar as a way of keeping time, and real agonies like my true hatred for Abraham. While consistently conceiving new scenarios of how the events could have unfolded, I call out to the gods once more.

“Did you enjoy the show?” Looking for a battle, I commence to question their morals and lack of action. “Which part brought you greater joy or laughter?” Attempting to entice them, by speaking ill of their behaviors. “Maybe it was when Abraham looked me in the eye, and said some ‘whore’ could never bear his child.” The idols knowing, then and now, that Abraham was speaking of my innocent daughter, one I never even knew existed before then. “No, you’d prefer the part where he told me their unborn child was just a sacrifice, to gain favor with you, the gods.” Abraham even told me that he did this to later have a ‘legitimate child’ with a ‘true woman’, his wife. Somehow being aware and making it obvious that this was my only child, and her mother was the only woman I have ever loved.

I wondered how Abraham and the divinities had thought it would play out. “Did you dare believe it?” Laughing at the deities as if they didn’t know what my reaction would be to finding all this out. “Did you assume that I would not dare?” Evoking the moment with intense pleasure, as if to paint the scene for the gods themselves. Imagining when Abraham uttered his last word, followed by an excruciating gag. A ball of blood exploded from his lips into a waterfall down his face. I stared back into his eyes with a balled fist to his chin. Within my fist, a dagger, now fully submerged in the cavities of Abraham's face. "My mother did always like a good saying, 'one must turn the tongue seven times in the mouth before speaking.'" Smiling, as I consciously turned the knife in Abraham's skull. Without hesitation and with great conviction, I watched the life leave his eyes.

“Speak you fools” Hans shouted, now enraged. Kicking up at the sand and waves as they hit the shore. Not having eaten or drank a drop of anything in two days, his body is already spent. “Show yourselves worthy” Not thinking, he runs and lunges into the ocean. Now attempting to face the Gods himself, he cuts through the water like a shark having tasted blood. Forgetting that at this time, real sharks hunt in the sea. After some time, he begins to chant, “Silence – will not – be your – answer”, as he creates a rhythm with his strokes, “not – this – time”. The water deities start to anger, and decide to throw some punches back. Slamming Hans in the face, with what felt to him like a concrete plate. Then sucking him under without a chance for breath. Just before loosing consciousness, letting him float back to the surface.

He comes to, swinging and wailing around, like an angry rag doll. As he tires out, he slowly notices a thick layer of foam collecting around him. Colorful strands of light swim below the foam, as fragments escape through the surface. Shining upon Hans’ face, now in awe, he is lost to the solidity of reality in this moment. Aiming to get a grasp on what is happening, he throws his arm into the ocean. Yanking out the first thing he feels, up comes a squid, slimy and tender. “This is what you bring to me” Hans tilted his head off to the side, and slightly looks up to sky, cynically grinning at the Gods. He quickly and primitively, rips off the head of the squid with his teeth, and proceeds to chew. “I deny this delicacy” He spits the partly masticated squid up into the sky. He repeats this disrespect to the deities, and screams, “I deny you”.

The clouds swell and release a heavy down pour. Hans looks up and sees drops of water containing every color of the spectrum, as the sea commences to roar. It appears as if the benevolent Mayan rain God is here, and is not alone. Something within the waters brushes across Hans’ leg, leathery to the touch like the eggs of a platypus or reptile. “Send your pawns, for we know you dare not face me alone”, he challenges the spirits once more. The unknown creature wraps around his ankle, and swiftly pulls him down. Swallowed by the ocean, Hans’ panics and struggles for release. When he finally gains the courage to open his eyes, he is introduced to endless darkness at all sides. Tunnels of cloudy waves spiral through the sea, as he is dragged further into its great depths. A faded image of the most colossal scales, like the magnification of snakeskin, forms before him. As he begins to focus, he is struck frozen by the sight. A monumental serpent slicing through the deep waters, like a freight train through a station with ease. Overcome by fear, Hans now seems to understand, Typhon, the God of monsters, has risen for him. For the rest of his journey towards the ocean floor, Hans is knocked out cold. In his unconsciousness, his mind continues weaving a web.

I can’t believe I longed to be with these deities, long to be one with Loki the mischievous. My daughter was so beautiful, she deserved so much more than the life she was dealt. Take me back to the warm ambiance of the fiddle and lur, and the familiar laughter. My mother’s face appears before, and I fall into her arms; I am home again.

...

When he finally awakens, his face is planted in the sand. He rolls over, expecting to be washed ashore, somewhere at least a bit familiar. A sperm whale floats across the sky directly above him, as a deep-sea dragon fish and vampire squid glow near by. “I must be hallucinating” Unable to believe such beauty can be seen by his own eyes. A giant squid over thirty feet long glides through a dark horizon. Hans now realizing he is underwater, and the sky, is actually the depths of the ocean. An abundance of octopus and jellyfish, of all colors and sizes are scatter all around. Sliding and slipping through the water, like they are without a care. “Do not keep us waiting, boy” a voice resonates throughout the atmosphere. Hans turns to set eyes upon the magnificent Tower of the Gods. Forgetting his quarrels with great spirits, he eagerly runs inside.

“Father” he hears his daughters’ voice echo throughout the tower. “Elizabeth” he calls out to her in anguish, looking to all corners, but seeing nothing but white light. “Before, you speak with her” the deities say to Hans forcefully in harmony. What sounds like the voice of Loki, questions Hans, “What is it you have to say for yourself?”. Thoughts race through his head, memories from his youth, all the way to the days right before these, flood in. “Loki” Hans manages to get out one word, still unable to process all that has happened. After a bit of silence, the Gods spoke once more, “We know your heart boy. So we know what we say, when we tell you, it is her you must face.” Revealing his daughter to him, they allow him to seek her forgiveness. As a naïve child once more, he goes to her, and together they slowly fade into the bright light. Who would know, that Hans’ lifeless body still floats back on the surface of the waters. Fully salted by the sea, soon to be food for the vultures that await him patiently.

“To my Hans” Loki sends his voice out through the universe, followed by his mischievous laughter. Hans was easily manipulated, through his honest desire to learn. Unaware of the true evils of this world, his willpower never had a chance. Maybe he was a victim of circumstance or maybe it was more than that. All we know of Hans Ludvik Enevoldsen, is of his deep innocent heart, and how it pounded for knowledge and adventure. He is an amazing and tender soul, but from this fate, we could not save him. “To Loki’s Hans” The gods raised a glass, and faded into the wind.

-- V.L. Gonzalez

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About the Creator

V L Go

Creative 🦋 Design is Everything!

Why do it alone?

https://linktr.ee/VanessaLianaGo

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